From the Washington Post
Five years ago this week, an insurgent shot down the Army Black Hawk helicopter that Tammy Duckworth was co-piloting in Iraq. Now an assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Duckworth lost her legs in the crash and the fire that followed.On Thursday, her Black Hawk crewmates who pulled her from the wreckage will be in Washington to celebrate her "alive day" -- what some veterans call their "second birthday" to mark their brushes with death. She will lead them on a tour of the Capitol and the White House…In a whirlwind, Duckworth has moved from the battlefields of Iraq to the halls of power in Washington, becoming part of a team headed by VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki, a former Army chief of staff, and Deputy Secretary W. Scott Gould, a Navy veteran, that is trying to overhaul an agency that's been called moribund and out of touch…"She is the face of the new generation," said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "Iraq and Afghanistan veterans aren't old white guys."Most days, Duckworth is in her office before 8 a.m., and she often works past 8 p.m. In her wheelchair, she rides the Metro from her apartment in Ballston to VA headquarters, directly above the McPherson Square station. She is helping to lead a VA reorganization meant, among other things, to reduce red tape…
Also from the Washington Post
Former president Bill Clinton urged Senate Democrats on Tuesday to resolve their differences with a health-care bill and pass an overhaul as soon as possible. Summoning the lessons of his own history with health-care reform, Clinton warned, "The worst thing to do is nothing…"Clinton noted the grim consequences of the failed reform effort 15 years ago, when he was in office: Democrats lost control of Congress in that year's midterm elections, health-care costs skyrocketed, and the rate of Americans without insurance continued to rise. This time, the former president admonished, senators should compromise for the sake of a deal."It's not important to be perfect here. It's important to act, to move, to start the ball rolling," Clinton told reporters after the meeting. "There will be amendments to this effort, whatever they pass, next year and the year after and the year after, and there should be. It's a big, complicated, organic thing. But the worst thing to do is nothing…"Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) invited Clinton to speak at the weekly session "to share his insights," said Reid spokesman Jim Manley. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a former senior Clinton aide, also urged him to attend, Manley said.Democratic lawmakers have yet to read the health-care bill, which Reid is expected to unveil early next week…
From the West Virginia Metro News
A coalition that pushed for health care reform on the national level is saying 'Thank You' to Third District Congressman Nick Rahall for voting for the U.S House of Representatives health care reform bill last weekend.The West Virginia AFL-CIO, West Virginia Education Association, West Virginians for Affordable Health Care, WV-Citizen Action Group, West Virginia Nurses Association and Organizing for America recognized Rahall Tuesday night at the West Virginia Health Right Building in Charleston."We worked very closely with them over a number of years to provide an affordable, accessible, high quality health care for our people," says Congressman Rahall…"For too many West Virginians, they cannot get health insurance or they find they're being cut off their health insurance. They're facing rationing by the private companies today," Rahall says...
From the Wall Street Journal
Senate Democrats circulated a plan Tuesday that would impose sweeping curbs on the Federal Reserve, posing the biggest legislative challenge to the central bank in decades and illustrating how divided Capitol Hill remains about the future of financial regulation…It would create a single banking regulator, a powerful council of regulators to monitor systemic risks to the economy and a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to write and enforce rules on products such as mortgages and credit cards.The proposal circulated Tuesday calls for curbs on the Fed's ability to offer emergency loans to individual companies, strips away virtually all of its bank-supervision and consumer-protection powers, and gives the White House and Congress some say in how the Fed's 12 regional banks are governed."Over the last number of years when [the Fed] took on consumer-protection responsibility and regulation of bank holding companies, it was an abysmal failure," Mr. Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, said at a press conference flanked by eight other Democrats on his panel. Under the proposal, the Fed would focus more narrowly on monetary policy, meaning the setting of interest rates...
